Bran wanted the antlers. He had heard Farlen speak of a hart's tracks beside the wolfswood road, and now he kept both hands spread above his head while Robb buttered an oatcake.
"Antlers," he said again, leaning towards his brother.
"If we find him," Robb promised.
Theon took the last crisp strip of bacon. "After twenty-five boys walk into the wood, Farlen will be lucky to find a squirrel."
Hugin watched from the open window. Jon put a scrap of meat on the sill before the crow could investigate the platter. Munin landed beside him, pushed beneath his wing and took it. Bran lowered his antlers long enough to laugh.
"You could come and show us how it is done," Jon said.
"Ser Rodrik has other plans for me." Theon looked less sorry than he ought to have done. Robb suspected those plans would occupy only the morning.
Arya wanted to go. Sansa reminded her that she had frightened away the cat she meant to catch the day before, and Arya began to explain that she had let it escape. Septa Mordane told her to finish her porridge.
"Bring me a hoof, then," Arya told Robb.
"What would you do with a hoof?" Sansa asked.
"Keep it."
Sansa wrinkled her nose and turned to Robb. "Jeyne says deer hide makes good gloves. May we have some?"
"If Farlen finds your deer," Eddard said. "You have divided most of it already."
Catelyn looked towards the short hunting spear Robb had left beside the door. "You are to stay with Farlen or Ser Arthur."
"I will, Mother."
"Jon leads the household today," Eddard said. "Listen when he calls you." He passed Robb the bread, and the matter was settled.
Old Nan was to have the tongue. Arya had asked her which part she liked, and now insisted that Robb remember it. He counted the requests on his fingers while Jon finished his breakfast. Bran caught at one of the fingers and said, "Mine."
"Aye. I remember yours." Robb lifted him onto his knee and let him finish the buttered oatcake.
The rain had ended before dawn. Robb's pony picked along the ridge between two wheel-ruts as Winter Town dripped around them. House Black waited at the lower gate without horns or bright hunting silk: eight shaggy garrons in mended tack, among them a gelding with one blind white eye and a scar beneath its saddle cloth.
Arthur held Bucephalus while Jon checked the girth with both hands. Short silver strands had escaped his tied-back hair. He glanced at Robb's mud-splashed boots. "Those may survive the first mile."
Robb grinned. "Where do you want me?"
"Beside me. Farlen has the hounds ready."
Eddard came down on his mud-flecked chestnut with Jory and the escort. While Ralf checked the last girths, Farlen described the two ways he had walked back to the road yesterday.
"Stay with Jon," Eddard told Arthur. "Leave the hunt to Farlen and Harwin." The knight inclined his head, and Eddard asked Jon's route.
"Along the wolfswood road, then west where Farlen found the tracks. We shall practise moving through the trees and be home before dark."
"Good hunting."
Tomas called the household into files. Elspeth came from the kitchen with oatcakes wrapped in linen and passed them to Alasdair for the packs.
"Remember the liver, Farlen."
"I know," the huntsman said. "You have told me twice."
"And yet I have had to remind you before." She gave him the last bundle, and he rode off laughing.
Eight of the household rode the garrons while the others walked, changing places when Ralf called. Jon dismounted at the first change and led Bucephalus; Robb let Cressen have his pony. The boy could not hide his pleasure as he climbed into the saddle. Luwin had allowed Olyver to ride again, provided he kept to quiet horses and left the heavy work to others. Through the rough ground he led the white-eyed gelding on the side it could see. Donnel, a lanky household boy with a long nose, took the next turn in its saddle. He listened closely as Olyver explained which side to approach from. Beyond the last crofts the pines closed around them, dripping upon boys and horses alike.
* * *
At a holly brake Farlen found fresh sign and called Harwin forward with the hounds. Jon sent Tomas along the higher ground with two files and led the others below, each boy passing the halt back with a raised hand.
The hart broke cover behind two hinds, its antlers shaking rain from the branches. Rylas ran after it with Cressen at his heels. Tomas struck his staff against a pale trunk and called them back; the files behind had stopped on the slope.
"Cressen followed you," Jon told Rylas. "You are meant to keep your file together. Tomas takes them for the rest of the day. You two stay beside him." Rylas looked towards the waiting boys and obeyed.
Farlen's horn led them west through close-set pines. Harwin's first arrow missed the hart; his second struck behind the ribs and sent it plunging downhill.
"Hold the horses!" Ralf shouted. Arthur and Jon caught Robb's slipping pony and brought its head uphill until it found its feet. Robb dismounted, shaken, as a horse screamed below.
The wounded hart had turned towards the waiting garrons. Donnel's white-eyed gelding reared and threw him onto his back. Ralf hauled two horses clear; Alasdair caught a loose bridle. The hart struck a birch and turned, its antlers sweeping towards the fallen boy.
"Shields to Donnel!" Jon called. "Rylas, get him out!"
Gage and Finnan braced their shields while Rylas crawled behind them. The hart's blow drove Gage backwards against Tomas, who held him up. A tine tore Finnan's sleeve. Rylas dragged Donnel over the roots.
Once Donnel was clear, Jon called Gage aside. Farlen drove his spear beneath the hart's breast, Harwin taking the shaft beside him. As the animal sank to its knees, Farlen stepped beyond the antlers and finished it with his knife.
Arthur found that Donnel could move his feet, though turning hurt. Cressen bound Finnan's shallow cut; Gage rubbed his left arm. Tomas gathered the files while Ralf recovered the gelding. Olyver waited with the other horses.
"Gage. Tomas. Rylas. Well done." Jon watched Rylas spread a blanket for Donnel. Robb brought the boy's coat and sat beside him.
* * *
Farlen dressed the hart beneath the pines, sending two pale boys for water. He wrapped the liver for Elspeth, saved the tongue for Old Nan and set the heart aside for Harwin. Robb marked Bran's tine with cord before helping bind the carcass to its poles.
After oatcakes and cheese, Rylas and Cressen took the rear pole; Tomas changed them before they staggered. Donnel rode behind Ralf with a blanket about his bruised middle. Gage walked to spare his left hand. The files passed each halt back and waited for those behind.
At the road Donnel offered the white-eyed gelding a piece of oatcake. It drew away. "He hates me now."
Ralf stood beside him at the horse's sound eye. "Let him smell it. Keep your hand open." The gelding drew back once more before taking the oatcake. Donnel stroked its neck and asked to ride it home.
"Not with that back. Olyver can take him." Ralf checked beneath the saddle pad before they moved on.
Children followed the antlers through Winter Town. Elspeth took the liver and sent the bearers to the washhouse. Donnel had the first slice; Gage passed Finnan his plate rather than reach with his sore hand.
Ralf brought Jon the torn rein and told him how closely the horses had been standing when they shied. "Show Arthur before you leave," Jon said. He told Tomas to practise bringing a fallen man behind the shields with the straw men. Gage offered to show his file how Finnan had covered Rylas. Robb ate quickly; he wanted Bran to see the antler before bed.
Farlen wrapped its sawn base in sacking. With Arya's hoof at his belt, Robb followed Harwin and the folded hide uphill. The tongue went ahead in Elspeth's covered bowl, out of reach of the castle dogs.
Bran came along the gallery beneath his nurse's guiding hand. He saw the antler and stretched both arms towards it.
"This one," Robb said, showing him the cord. "Mikken will cut it for you."
Sansa and Jeyne came to inspect the hide. Jeyne lifted a clean edge from Harwin's saddle, and Sansa asked whether they could have their gloves lined in blue. Arya arrived at a run and seized the hoof from Robb's belt.
"It smells," Sansa said, stepping back.
Arya held it up as though it were a sword hilt. "Mikken can put a blade in it."
"Mikken has work enough." The smith had heard his name as he crossed the ward with an iron bar. He stopped to examine the antler Robb showed him. "I can saw that before supper. The hoof had best be cleaned before anyone takes it indoors."
Arya looked down at it, then at Sansa's retreating skirts. Robb caught her wrist before she could follow.
"No."
"I wasn't."
"You were." He took the hoof and hung it beside the washhouse. Bran began crying when he carried the antler to Mikken, and stopped only when the smith let him hold the loose cord.
Catelyn stopped Robb on his way to the basin. He told her about the slipping pony and Donnel's fall before she could ask about his bruised wrist. She turned his hand over, checking it herself.
"He stayed beside Arthur," Jon assured her. "The ground gave under the pony. We caught it."
Her eyes went to the blood on Jon's cuff. "And Donnel?"
"Resting at the yard. Arthur has sent for Luwin."
She let Robb go. Eddard found the boys washing and asked them to come down with him after supper to see Donnel. Both agreed. Robb poured the last clean water over Jon's hands before they went in.
At supper Arya asked when a hoof stopped smelling, until Mordane forbade the question. Bran had fallen asleep with the antler cord in his fist. His nurse freed it finger by finger while Robb watched, disappointed that the prize had failed to keep him awake. Eddard carved the haunch and heard the account of the hunt; Catelyn moved the wine jug out of the path of Robb's knife as he described the wood.
Later a kitchen girl brought Old Nan's thanks for the tongue. She had asked whether the boys meant to empty the whole forest before she grew too old to chew.
"She was too old before I was born," Theon said.
"You may tell her so yourself," Eddard replied.
Before the girl went, Theon said, "Tell her I want to hear how that ship got off the rocks. She sent me away last night before the men had even raised a sail."
"She said you would come asking."
"Did she? Tell her I shall bring a better ending if hers is poor."
The girl went away laughing. Robb asked what ship he meant, and Theon began with the storm, pushing his cup aside to show how close the vessel had come to shore.
Nan had lost both sons in Robert's war and a grandson at Pyke. Jon had heard her speak of the grandson to Wylla; she still kept a little knife he had made her for cutting thread. When Theon joined the children by her fire, she would send him to fetch another stool. Jon listened as Robb asked whether the captain could have put his men ashore. Theon shook his head and began explaining the rocks again.
When the dishes were cleared, Jon fetched his cloak. Robb came without being called. Eddard joined them at the door, and the three went down through the lingering evening light to see Donnel. Jory brought six guards after them, leaving room for Robb to walk beside his father.
They found Donnel beside the common-room fire, and Eddard drew up a stool to ask after his back. Nearby, Elspeth was dividing the remaining venison. Marya came for Harl's portion with two daughters. She was a small woman with a pointed nose and dark hair coming loose from its plait. Her younger girl, Rhea, asked whether men ate better on the high road.
"Worse," Ralf told her. "That is why they speak so fondly of supper after they return." She tied a little strip of yellow wool around his finger and went to find another for her father.
* * *
For two days the falcon clock stood in pieces across the work court. Its largest section rested in a timber cradle padded with felt; the blue face, white case and carved wings were packed separately. Jon checked the cradle with Garrick and had him wedge the load firmly in place. Olyver rolled the tools and leather strips for the White Harbor clock in waxed linen.
Eddard had released Harl, Osbert, Wyl and Quent. Ralf read them the route: Garrick to see the clock aboard at White Harbor, Ralf to take the voyage and inland road to the Gates of the Moon.
The convoy was ready three mornings after the hunt. Woods followed the largest chest onto the road, reminding Osric where to support it. Marya and both daughters stood among the townsfolk watching the wagons. The younger had tied yellow wool round Harl's sword belt.
"It is a favour," she told Jon.
"He will be pleased with it," Jon said.
Harl bent to kiss his daughter and then Marya. She straightened the strip where it had twisted about his belt.
Jon gave Ralf the letter for Nestor Royce. "Have the keeper run the clock for seven days. When Lord Nestor is satisfied, bring back his letter of acceptance."
Ralf tucked it inside his coat. "If he asks for another week?"
"You judge whether the clock needs it. Do not let him keep the men for show."
Garrick called that the team was ready. Ralf went to the lead wagon.
The wagons rolled beneath the black gate. Olyver rode beside Garrick's second team with his tools and leather strips under the seat; he would turn north again from White Harbor while Ralf carried the clock south. Harl swung into the saddle and raised a hand to his daughters as they called after him.
When the last black cover vanished beyond the pines, the household returned to the field. Two straw men lay behind a row of practice shields. At Tomas's call, Alasdair and Rylas went through the opening, took one beneath its arms, and hauled it back while Gage's file covered them. The straw man lost a boot. Tomas sent them back for it after the halt.
Donnel watched from beside the white-eyed gelding, oats in his open hand. When the shields struck together the horse raised its head. Donnel waited; after a moment it lowered its nose again.
Jon came over and stood on the gelding's seeing side while Donnel stroked its neck. Beyond them the shields struck again; this time the horse went on eating.